How MY SALON Suite Delivers on the Entrepreneurial Dream

THOUGHT PROCESS:Many people say that if they could, they would prefer to be their own boss. MY SALON Suite brings the dream to life, making it easy and affordable for beauty industry entrepreneurs to become business owners.

ACTION STEPS:Discover where MY SALON Suite has locations in your area and how their business model can help you become your own boss.

Each year, Boss’s Day falls on October 16, unless that happens to be a weekend day. While it’s a great time to give your favorite boss some recognition each year, it made us think about just how many small business owners there are in the U.S. and Canada who are independent entrepreneurs, and for whom work is its own reward on Boss’s Day (and every day.)

There are nearly 30 million small businesses in the U.S. and Canada (combined). According to the Small Business Administration, American small businesses account for 54 percent of sales, 55 percent of all jobs and 66 percent of all net new jobs since the 1970s.

Gallup recently asked 600 small business owners whether they would do it all over again – start their own business – if they could go back in time. An impressive 84 percent said yes, for sure. It’s a statistic that has held fairly steady for the past 11 years. When asked what aspects of work they found most rewarding, the number one answer by a large margin was “being my own boss, independence, being the decision-maker.” Perhaps this isn’t so surprising, especially considering that people who quit their jobs most commonly cite their immediate manager as their reason for leaving.

Another Gallup study found that 57 percent of Americans want to start a business. When the question was asked of working Americans, the number was even higher (61 percent), and the number rose even higher (72 percent) when asked of younger workers. So what is it about business ownership that makes the increased responsibility, longer work hours and risk so worth it?

In some cases, it’s because the entrepreneur has a clear vision of how to build a better product or deliver a better customer experience. In others, it’s a desire to take control of their work environment, hours and lifestyle. Still others see it as the career path with the most potential for professional and financial success.

For many, it’s all of the above.

MY SALON Suite delivers on the entrepreneurial dream with both franchise and salon ownership opportunities. Our business model allows beauty professionals to open their own salons quickly and cost-effectively, and gives them control over their work environment and earning potential.

MY SALON Suite also invests in tools and resources its members can use to grow more quickly and overcome the challenges business owners often face. We provide marketing support, ideas, web space, email marketing and social media so you can grow your book of business more quickly. Your suite will already be furnished with high-end equipment and luxurious fixtures, as well as utilities like heat, air and Wi-Fi. We want you to be free to focus on your business, not mired down in operational details.

Finding out whether business ownership through MY SALON Suite is right for you is easy, and it’s all about you! We will set up a one-on-one tour for you at a MY SALON Suite location in your area so you can get answers to any questions you may have and get a feel for what it would feel like to own your own salon.

When you’re ready, you can choose your suite, since all of our suites have a unique design. You’re free to choose the space that best-reflects your needs as a beauty professional and the unique brand personality you want for your business. From there, you can further personalize your suite and make it inviting and attractive to your clients.

Salon Suite Ownership Might Be Perfect for You

Salon suite ownership might be the ideal business model for beauty professionals who want to take back control over their schedules and be free to do their work, their way. If you want more freedom in your work life or you want to keep more of what you earn, and build for the future, fulfilling your entrepreneurial dreams through business ownership at MY SALON Suite might be perfect for you.

4 Social Media Hacks for the Beauty Solo-PRO-Neur

​​THOUGHT PROCESS:
For the independent beauty professional, the line between business and personal is often blurred, especially on social networks. Developing a strategy for social marketing is key.

ACTION STEPS:
Master the best practices of social marketing to use social media effectively as a client acquisition and engagement tool.

4 Salon Suite Marketing Musts for Social Media

1. Draw a Line in the Internet Sand

Make a distinction between the personal and the professional on social media. Ideally, you will (a) create dedicated Salon Suite social media profiles for professional use on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and any other social networks where you are likely to interact with clients and (b) refrain from sharing personal updates on these networks.

If you decide that you will use your personal social media accounts for professional use, you can use sharing controls to limit exposure of updates to the appropriate group of followers on some networks, but it’s much more difficult to keep personal updates separate from business updates. You will also need to exercise restraint, because opinions, news and information you share with friends and family might not be updates clients want to read, which could result in lost followers or even lost clients.

2. Re-Sharing is Caring

As much as you might hope that an update you shared on 10 AM on a Monday morning will be seen by all your social media followers, chances are that it won’t. “Shelf life” is a grocery store term that references how long food items can remain on the shelf before their sell by or expiration date.

The shelf life of social posts references how long those posts will remain in the news feeds of your followers (on average), and it’s a very short length of time! According to Wiselytics, 75 percent of the people who will see your Facebook update will have seen it within the first 2 hours after posting.

Consider this:

7 out of 10 consumers say reviews over 90 days old are no longer relevant (Search Engine Land)

The median life span of a tweet is 18 minutes and 92 percent of tweet engagement occurs within the 48 hours of posting (GaggleAMP)

75 percent of Facebook status update engagement occurs in the first 5 hours after posting (Wiselytics)

One and done doesn’t work for social media marketing. For example, if you’re posting an update with a special offer for the month, plan to post it once a week, and vary the date and time that you share the update, in order to ensure that more of your followers see it.

3. Mix in Max-Value Content

All content is not created equal. If we are going to rank the value of content type, let’s start with words, which we will rank at one point each. Twitter posts are typically 140 words (or less), so let’s give the average social media update a (generous) starting score of 150 when it contains words only.

A picture is worth a thousand words (as the saying goes). According to Forrester Research, one minute of video is worth 1.8 million – yes million – words. This gives us a basis for actually scoring social updates on a point system, as follows:

150 points – text-only social update

1000 points – image-only social update

1150 points – text a+ image social update

1,800,000 points – 1 minute video-only social update

1,800,150 points – text + 1-minute video social update

If you want people to notice your social posts, you’ll always include an image, such as: free stock photography or sites that sell images individually or by subscription, memes, illustrations, selfies, and before and after client photos. In the case of before and after client photos, you could use your phone’s camera to capture a short before video and a short after video taken as your client is admiring your work from every angle, while you turn her in the chair. Not only does this take your content from just another before-after collage to a more engaging medium, it also creates an instant client testimonial, and helps potential clients see what your Salon Suite environment is really like.

4. Put a Little Money Where Your Mouth Is

The organic shelf life of a social post is very short; however, if you will allocate $30 per month – which comes out to about a $1 a day – to sponsoring your most important social posts on Facebook, you can extend the reach of those updates.

Not only will you extend the shelf life, but Facebook’s ad targeting is so specific that it also allows you to restrict ad placement so that only members of a specific target market will see the ad. In this way you can avoid wasting money by putting client acquisition ads in front of people who are already your followers, or ensure that only your followers see your VIP client special offers, and so on.

You can use social media to attract and engage your clients with a few thoughtful adjustments to your approach. Differentiate between your personal and professional social updates and use these tips to extend the reach and impact of your posts.

"An Email is Worth a Thousand Social Updates"​No Salon Suite Marketing Plan is Complete without Email

THOUGHT PROCESS: When they say “a picture is worth a thousand words” they are speaking about impact. When it comes to Salon Suite marketing, the emails sent to clients have far more impact than all those social media posts; here’s why.

It’s easy to believe that “new media” like social networks have supplanted traditional marketing; however, it simply isn’t so. Email marketing has been at the top of the heap when it comes to return on investment and effectiveness for years, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change any time soon.

Consider some of the statistics:

Emails are 6x more likely to get a click through (to your website) than Tweets (Campaign Monitor)

Emails are 40x more effective for customer-acquisition than Twitter (McKinsey)

Email has a higher conversion rate (66 percent) compared to social media or direct mail (DMA)

Email subscribers are 3x more likely to share your updates on social networks than non-subscribers (QuickSprout)

72 percent of consumers prefer to receive promotional materials on email compared to just 17 percent who prefer social media (Marketing Sherpa)

An email message is 5x more likely to be seen than a Facebook update (radicati.com)

Email can be a powerful marketing tool for Salon Suite owners!​You can use email newsletters to shine the spotlight on your Salon Suite’s services and products, and extend special offers to your subscribers. However, promotional emails are just one of many ways you can use email to grow your book of business, get more word of mouth referrals and increase client retention.

5 Ways to Use Email in Salon Suite Marketing

​1. Reaching Out to Lapsed Clients

Hopefully you rebook most clients during their appointments; however, it’s not always possible. Depending on how often you expect clients to book, when it’s been a few weeks since you expected to hear from them you can use email to let them know that you miss them, invite them to book their next appointment or let you know if some type of dissatisfaction is standing in the way.

2. Reminders

Some of your clients may prefer email reminders to phone calls, texts or social media messages; or, you may use multiple channels (such as an email 3-4 days prior and a text message the day before) to remind clients about booked appointments. Studies show that reminders can reduce no shows by anywhere from 22 to 35 percent. This is money in your pocket!

3. Thank Yous

You have probably been advised to send client thank you notes, but may have been discouraged by the thought of having to sit down and write out thank you notes at the end of each day. Email takes the pain out of client thank you notes. With a few scripts to cut and paste, you can send client thank you notes at the end of each day in a matter of minutes.

4. Reviews and Referrals

Positive online reviews are one of the most powerful forms of referral marketing today. In fact, a majority of consumers say they won’t even do business with organizations that don’t have at least a 3-star rating, and 4 out of 10 will only do business with those that have 4 stars or more. You can use email to ask select clients to leave a review for your Salon Suite on Yelp, Facebook, Google My Business and other popular review sites. You can also use email to remind clients about any referral rewards or incentives you offer.

5. Expertise

In addition to promotions or special offers, you can use email newsletters to extend your influence with your clients by infusing expert tips and advice into your Salon Suite’s email updates; such as:

Seasonal hair, scalp or skin care tips

Retail product and styling tool evaluations and recommendations

Step by step styling instructions

How-to tips for replicating celebrity looks

Debunking myths – and so on

It’s time for you to start taking advantage of all the marketing returns email has to offer. Integrate email as one of the cornerstone marketing channels to grow your Salon Suite business.